Man and Wife, IV: Best of 2011, so far.

A Mojo Mystery Tour: Help Man and Wife reveal the secret identities of the musicians on the buttons and win a prize.

Man, Wife and Sister at Coachella Music and Art Festival (we don’t know the guy behind us).

Before you listen, visit the Man and Wife Workshop Facebook page and “like” us. Thanks.

You can also subscribe to Man and Wife on iTunes, here.

Or to download, right click and save file, Mid-year Roundup: Best of 2011, so far.

ENJOY THE SHOW, BELOW:

On this fourth episode of Man and Wife, a special guest joins the duo for a discussion on the best new music of the first-half of 2011. Man gets a lesson in hipster band name pronunciation and Wife tries to determine the secret identity of four wayward Mojo magazine buttons. The playlist comprises…

Cupid Misses the Mark: Eff You Coachella

Before you listen, visit the Man and Wife Workshop Facebook page and “like” us. Thanks.

You can also subscribe to Man and Wife on iTunes, here.

Or to download, right click and save file, Man and Wife III

ENJOY THE SHOW, BELOW:

In the third installment, Man and Wife discuss their gross disappointment in missing out on the upcoming Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California. Through tourette-like fits of profanity and rage, Man and Wife let Coachella know how they really feel about its sold-out status and present eleven songs, all from artists Man and Wife are sad to miss. Enjoy the mother (bleeping) show.

This colorful episode features the following songs:

My TEDxABQ “Talk” (video)

In September of 2010 I was invited to the Hard Rock Casino and Resort Hotel in Albuquerque to present a talk called “How To Write and Talk Music Without Sounding Like a Total Jerk” for the TEDxABQ conference. The TED tradition (the acronym stands for “technology, entertainment and design”) is a platform shared by people world-wide where they can share their passions and ideas.

I’d long considered myself a TEDhead, although I only recently discovered the witty designation. Some of the talks  have changed the way I approach my life, both creatively and professionally. In 2009, I was half-listening  to a TED podcast beneath the daily hum of another commute: “People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.” The man on the stage said it again. His name is Simon Sinek, a leadership specialist and author who participated in TEDxPuget Sound in 2009 with a talk called “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” “People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.” Passionately, he made his case and 18 minutes and 5 seconds later I was looking at my work in music and communications with a fresh and inspired new perspective. Many TEDheads can attest to similarly singular moments.

Needless to say, I had become very fond of TED by the time I was invited to present. Earlier in the year, I had patched together a talk for Ignite New Mexico. Weeks prior to this lecture, I began to construct what I hoped would turn into an engaging and thoughtful talk on how we might better communicate with one another when dealing with the kaleidoscope that is popular music. I summoned all my journalistic prowess and churned out a five-minute showpiece, dense with attribution, accuracy and brevity. As it went, an hour before the night’s lecture I trashed the script – I hadn’t memorized it and it was pretty boring. I had a beer to calm my nerves and apologized in advance to my wife. Then, across the room I saw my banjo. I grabbed it, decided on three main chords (G, C, D), and started scribbling furiously, using my old script as a guide. It became a song. Then a memorable Ignite NM performance. Then the song evolved into my TED talk. Music, again, has saved my ass. Enjoy.

Best albums of 2010

As published by Local iQ magazine, December 201.

With music currently in a million tiny pieces, many new resources are available to help the music lover navigate the congestion

By Todd Eric Lovato
“How do you find new music?”

I get this question a lot, particularly at the end of the year, a time when a good chunk of my days are spent with a pair of headphones firmly glued to my head in an annual quest for the music-lover’s Holy Grail: the perfect album. It’s a question I prefer to dodge, usually with an, “I look for it” or, “I just try to pay attention.” I’m not trying to be sanctimonious, it’s truly a difficult one to answer. This is especially true in 2010, a year where music is as varied as perhaps it has ever been.

With so many genres and sub-genres, music has already been chopped into a million pieces. And as the new millennium moves forward, we are witnessing these pieces chopped into ever-finer bits — a grand audio fractal that reminds me of the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” broom scene from Fantasia.

Luckily, as the musical universe expands, so does a wealth of free resources to help navigate it. Without the following resources, I would be little more than a stressed out, axe-wielding wizard’s apprentice mouse.

Lovato? You Don’t Look Spanish (Pt. 1)

It’s too bad Coronado isn’t alive today to see his vision of the (Seven) Cities of Gold Casino come true.

(Names have been changed to protect privacy.)

My name is Todd Eric Lovato — my father is a Lovato, my mother a Sigstedt (don’t ask) — and in my daily deeds I hear the following statement more than I should: “You’re a Lovato? You don’t look Spanish.”

I hear it, or some iteration of it, a lot. Always from Hispanics (or Latinos, or Chicanos, or Chihispatinos, or whatever), never from non-Hispanics (I will pick on them at a later time).

“You don’t look Spanish.”

Now that I’m back in my hometown, Santa Fe, I get it more than ever, most often during casual, introductory social exchanges — the bar, the work, the game, the party, the day trip to Española.

One time, I dropped off some slacks to be hemmed at a local mom-and-pop tailor shop off Cerillos road. The old Hispano owner in a veterans ball cap took down my name, then stopped midway and peered at me above his bifocals:

Man and Wife Podcast II: Worst of the Best

Hi. First order of business, visit the Man and Wife Workshop Facebook page and “like” us. Thanks.

In their latest episode, Man and Wife list the worst of the best — the worst songs ever to reach Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, from 1958 through 2010.

Thanks to Dad and Sister for helping. Enjoy the show.

You can also subscribe to Man and Wife on iTunes, here.

To download, right click and save file, Man and Wife II

As promised, here’s the track list:

• The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late) – Alvin and the Chipmunks (1958)
• The Lion Sleeps Tonight – The Tokens (1961)
• Smooth – Santana, Rob Thomas (1999)
• Every Breath You Take – The Police (1983)
• Kiss You All Over – Exile (1978)
• Butterfly – Crazy Town (2000)
• You’re Beautiful – James Blunt (2005)
• Grillz -  Nelly, Paul Wall, Ali and Gipp (2006)
• Silly Love Songs – Paul McCartney, Wings (1976)
• Afternoon Delight – Starland Vocal Band (1976)
• Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) – C+C Music Factory (1990)
• Kokomo – The Beach Boys (1988)
• I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) – Meat Loaf (1993)
• I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston (1992)
• MacArthur Park – Donna Summer (1978)
• Escape (The Pina Colada Song) – Rupert Holmes (1980)

2009: The year in music

In a week or so, Local iQ magazine will publish my albums of the year for 2010. Since I never posted 2009′s list, bloggy-style, I thought we’d take a melodious jump back in time. Do I have any regrets about my picks? Not a one. They’ve aged well over the past 360+ days — although Grizzly Bear’s “Two Weeks” has been picked up by so many commercials and soundtracks that I’m sick of it. Don’t forget to pick up a copy of Local iQ for 2010′s list in the coming days. (Thanks to Savannah for transcribing.)

(Originally published in Local iQ magazine.)

Bears, horses, bats, moths, mice and other ‘creatures’ clawed their way to the top of the music pile in 2009

Popular music in 2009 might best be summed up as the year of the beast, at least in namesake. Animal Collective, the New York City-based electronic art-rock group, placed themselves as head of the flock early in January of 2009 with one of the year’s finest albums, Merriweather Post Pavilion. Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest wowed listeners with its nocturnal introspection and hibernal melodies. England’s pop-rock darlings Wild Beasts clawed into widespread acclaim with Two Dancers and super-producers Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse teamed up with filmmaker David Lynch to produce the year’s best never-officially-released album, Dark Night of the Soul. After a dispute with his record label, Danger Mouse stopped just short of telling his fans to look for pirated versions of the album online.

While these albums make up the most dominant releases of the year, artists like the Fruit Bats, Moderat, Super Furry Animals, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Doves and Albuquerque’s own Le Chat Lunatique (The Crazy Cat) are all noteworthy releases.

In digitally charged era set to the hum of mp3s, iPods and multimedia electro-jumble, it’s refreshing to note that much of the year’s best music recordings maintained a connection to something determinably more primal. Of course there were a number of must-have 2009 releases that didn’t dabble in the wild and anthropomorphic, but it’s comforting to know that close, popular music remains unfettered and untamed. The following are my favorite albums of 2009.

Introducing…the Man and Wife podcast

Man and Wife at All Points West Music and Arts Festival, Jersey City

Nov. 15, 2010 — On their debut, Man and Wife discuss and listen to their favorite songs and albums of the year…so far. They also discuss some major musical disappointments, and one of them finds their way to the bottom of a vodka-laced apple cider. “We spent the year listening to new albums and traveling to live concerts so we could make this list for people to enjoy,” said Wife. “There  were so many good acts this year, it was difficult to choose only a handful. But it is an honor to blabber about it for 74 minutes.” “Enjoy the show!” said Man.

Listen here:

To download, right click and Save Link As HERE.

Featured Songs:

Gorillaz, Plastic Beach, “Stylo”

The Budos Band, The Budos Band III, “Black Venom”

Matthew Dear, Black City, “I Can’t Feel”…

Blues Jam or Boomer Bacchanal (Pt. 1)

When middle-aged Levis-clad white women dance to blues, I’m telling you, they dance with uterus first.

They bounce and gyrate, tautly bending knees, shaking hips and squatting like wrinkly Western-themed barbie dolls. They clomp their boots to the live sounds of perennial white-guy blues pablum — at this moment the song is “Lay Down Sally,” which was lame enough when Eric Clapton  recorded it.

The revelry spreads like a hot flash. There are three women dancing. Six. More are bobbing in the wings. I look around the room, thinking “How big could this get?”

Like a toddler, a woman in salt-and-pepper hair and a peasant dress twirls and “drops it like it’s hot” — squatting to slap the floor with both hands. I am uncomfortable.

Men are there too. Donning collared shirts tucked into jeans, the studs traipse and spin with the graces of spinal traction patients. They have ruddy faces and brandy noses; they stare nowhere, locked in a blues-induced trance. I am reminded of the Gurdieff movements in “Meetings with Remakable Men,” repetitive, symmetrical spins and steps designed to enlighten the seeker. “I long to see the morning light, coloring your face so dreamily…Don’t you ever leave.”

The tao of Eric Clapton. Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in order to become a great bluesman. I’m certain he is serving out his eternal punishment in a club like this.

Ad infinitum, the musicians hammer out the obligatory I-IV-V, 12-bar blues progressions. The pentatonic guitar scale does its sensible work –  loyal, weary, trodden — like a pack mule. Tonight, repetition and familiarity is king. “I’ve heard this song 3,000 times!” a man says enthusiastically as the band fires up “She Complicated”.

I have a solid view of tonight’s boomer bacchanal. I am on the stage, a member of the guilty party.

My Top 15 Albums

This is an extension of a Facebook post I wanted to preserve. This way, I can look at this list in 5 years and judge myself.

(In no particular order):

Miles Davis – Kind of Blue

A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Maurauders

Squarepusher – Hard Normal Daddy

Muddy Waters – Hard Again

Mahavishnu Orchestra – Birds of Fire

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention – We’re Only In It for the Money

DJ QBert – Wave Twisters

Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

Beck – Sea Change

The Roots – Do You Want More??!!!!!

Pink Floyd – Shine on You Crazy Diamond

Madvillian – Madvilliany

Herbie Hancock – Headhunters

Steely Dan – Aja

Beach House – Teen Dream